Notes to Pages 24–29 252 INTRODUCTION Molly Haskell 1 Quoted in Kevin Brownlow, Mary Pickford Rediscovered: Rare Pictures of a Hollywood Legend (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 13. 2 Ibid., 20. 3 Ibid., 34. 4 Ibid., 35. THE NATURAL Transitions in Mary Pickford’s Acting from the Footlights to Her Greatest Role in Film EileenWhitfield 1 EileenWhitfield, Pickford: TheWomanWho Made Hollywood (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997), 127. 2 Pickford claimed she began acting at the age of five. In fact, she was seven years and eight months old. 3 Kim Marra, Strange Duets: Impresarios and Actresses in the American Theatre, 1865–1914 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006), 223. 4 Mary Pickford, interview by George Pratt, 1958, George Eastman House; Mary Pickford, Sunshine and Shadow (Garden City, NY: Doubleday , 1955), 59. 5 Barnett Braverman Collection, D.W . Gri≈th Papers, 1897–1954, Museum of Modern Art, New York. 6 Harry C. Carr, “How Gri≈th Picks His LeadingWomen,” Photoplay, December 1918, 24. 7 Alison Smith, “Owen Talks about Mary,” Photoplay, December 1919, 58. 8 Pickford, Sunshine and Shadow, 159. 9 Mary Pickford, interview with Tony Thomas, 1961, CBC Archives, Toronto. 10 Kemp Niver, Mary Pickford, Comedienne (Los Angeles: Ocare Research Group, 1969), 14. 11 Julian Johnson, “Mary Pickford: Herself and Her Career Part III,” Photoplay, January 1916, 40. 12 Pickford, Sunshine and Shadow, 116. Pickford used a hand bite at least three times on film, in A Beast at Bay (1912), Tess of the Storm Country (1914), and Kiki (1931). 13 Robert Berkvist, “Stephen Sondheim Takes a Stab at Grand Guignol,” New York Times, February 5, 1979, D1. 14 Moving PictureWorld, December 24, 1910, 1462. 15 Gish’s image in talking films was much more steely; see especially The Night of the Hunter (1955). 16 Tom Gunning, The Gri≈th Project, vol. 4 (London: British Film Institute , 2000), 134. 17 In nickelodeons, Pickford played slaveys in An Arcadian Maid (1910), Simple Charity (1910), and The Unwelcome Guest (1913). In features, she played them in The Foundling (1916), Stella Maris (1918), Johanna Enlists (1918), and Suds (1920). 18 See, for instance, 1912’s The Female of the Species, The School Teacher and theWaif, and The New York Hat. 19 Scrapbook 3 (ca. 1914–1933), FSA box A, number 19, Mary Pickford Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 20 Julian Johnson, “Mary Pickford: Herself and Her Career Conclusion ,” Photoplay, February 1916, 52. Johnson was describing Pickford’s work in The Dawn of a Tomorrow (1915), but it captures the heart of her appeal. 21 Mary Pickford, interview by Arthur B. Friedman, May 1958, Columbia University Oral History Project. 22 Pickford, interview by Pratt. 23 See especially Pickford’s versions of M’liss (1918) and Heart O’ the Hills (1919). Childhood Revisited An Evaluation of Mary Pickford’s Youngest Characters EileenWhitfield 1 Jerome L. Rodnitzky, Feminist Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of a Feminist Counterculture (West Port, CT: Praeger, 1999), 94; Marjorie Rosen, PopcornVenus (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1973), 38. 2 In 1954 forty-year-old Mary Martin starred in the Broadway musical version of Peter Pan. 3 “‘Good Little Devil’ Gives Rare Delight,” New York Times, January 9, 1913, 9; “At the Theatres (‘A Good Little Devil’),” Washington Herald, December 31, 1912, 4. 4 Wendell Phillips Dodge, “The Maude Adams of the ‘Movies,’” Theatre, January 1913, 176. 5 “Grand Tripple [sic] Program Sunday (Mary Pickford in ‘A Poor Little Rich Girl’),” Ogden Standard, March 24, 1917, 6. Gwen’s eleventh birthday is celebrated in the film. 6 Mary Pickford, “The Portrayal of Child Roles,” Vanity Fair, December 1917, 75. 7 Little Lord Fauntleroy is the only feature in which Pickford plays a boy. She appears in the same film as Fauntleroy’s mother. 8 John C. Tibbetts, “Mary Pickford and the American Growing Girl,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 29, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 51. 9 Frances Marion, O∑ with Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 73. 10 Beverly Lyon Clark, Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 7. 11 Rosen, PopcornVenus, 38, 44. 12 Pickford, “Portrayal of Child Roles,” 75. 13 Such performances have also succeeded in the sound era. For instance, Julie Harris was twenty-six years old when she played a twelveyear -old in The Member of the Wedding (1952). Her performance was nominated for an Oscar. Notes...